Nacht Der Untoten  The Story Begins
by TheAtomicViking
Summary: Four soldiers escape from a plane wreckage, only to be thrown into a world of zombies and horror. For one it's the start of a new chapter.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: **

**The Plane**

There are few things in life more intimidating than five well built and temperamental men putting their safety in your hands, especially when one is one of the most decorated veterans of your time. As such, the pilot of this particular plane was having nearly a heart attack as he flew the small platoon to their drop point along with whatever this special cargo of theirs was. His name was Daniel Byre and he didn't realize the danger he was in.

"Never liked planes" Came a sudden statement from the rear of the small plane. Daniels eyes dilated in surprise and fear, he knew that voice. That was the voice of the group's commanding officer. Staff Sergeant Dempsey. Daniels heart skipped a beat.

"Flying death traps" Another soldier was chiming in, this one much less recognizable. Private Miller, if Daniels memory was correct. A thin man with wild eyes, Miller was the joker of the platoon. Every word out of his mouth at the hangar had been nails on a chalk board to Byre. These words were no different.

The rest of the platoon was far less vocal, going only so far as to grunt agreement. They all agreed and if they didn't, they sure as hell weren't going to go against their sergeant. The flight resumed its cold silence… at least for a few minutes.

"So what's in this box anyway?" Miller again, Daniel fought not to groan.

"What does it matter, once we drop it at the rendezvous we're done with it" This was someone else. The clearly identifiable accent made this clear. It was Lance Corporal Fierro, an Italian American who had recently joined the semi-elite team. A tall and bulky man, he had barely fit through the door of the plane with his beloved mg42 machine gun. It sat on his lap now as he sat confidently and looked over at Miller.

"What's in that box is a mystery and that wont change" Ferro added.

"The size of it is something of a curiosity" Nasally. Not a familiar voice to Daniel. A glance back at the source revealed it was Lance Corporal Chase. His was the oddest build; Chase was the portrait of average in both height and weight with the darkest and boldest hair of the group. The horn rimmed glasses he wore weren't exactly up to code but he didn't seem particularly affected as he adjusted them and looked at the large box at the far end of the transport.

"And everyone knows what happened to the curious cat." Staff Sergeant Dempsey stated coldly as he began to clean his personal sidearm, a .357 magnum.

A chill rushed down Daniels spine and his eyes returned to the sky, he couldn't even look at that man let alone look him in the eye. Nobody could since Peleliu. The story was haunting.

"It got shot?" Miller chimed enthusiasm thick in his few words. He felt he'd gotten the answer correct.

Chase laughed, Fierro smirked, and Dempsey gave a cold but conceding semi-smile, the last being Private Field. Daniel knew the least about Field, nobody knew much about the silent wiry mouse of a man. All anyone knew about Field was he had enlisted with his brother, the last piece of which he had was a second set of dog tags he wore around his neck.

Daniel took a deep breath and looked out at the sky. It was getting darker, harder to see clearly. Before long he would need to land so as not to get blown out of the sky or lost in Berlin.

"We there yet?" the words shook Daniel from his thoughts suddenly. It was Miller again; apparently the conversation back there had teetered out.

"No" Daniel responded flatly as he looked back at the nuisance.

"Then we should land for the night." Fierro stated as he pulled a cigarette from his jacket and lit it. Smoke wafted from the glowing stick.

"Not an option" Sergeant now. His medal of honor shined back the dim glow of Fierro's cigarette. "This package is our mission; we aren't landing until its back in the states."

Daniel sighed and looked at the box… then looked again. It had shifted. Been moved. Something was off; but Daniel couldn't quite place it. What was in it, he asked himself as he looked back at the sky. In the light of the stars he remembered.

Confiscated Nazi technology, some sort of earth shattering discovery. At least that's what the higher ups believed, and when they were set on something they weren't usually wrong. But what could be so incredible that the plane wasn't allowed to land and the men weren't allowed to look.

"So no landing? What if fly boy here gets sleepy?" Miller. For once he was stating something worth noting, Daniel was the only pilot on the flight. One wrong blink and suddenly they're gone.

"Then we crash" This turned all heads toward one. Field had spoken for the first time since they had begun their journey into the Reich to retrieve the box to begin with. "And we died for the mission. Big heroes, all of us." Field's bitterness was biting ice, making the Sergeant seem cuddly by comparison.

Daniel looked back worriedly, on the verge of telling Field to go back to his silence. Something stopped him dead in his tracks. Behind all of the soldiers, who's eyes had been glued to Field, was a corpse… It was standing in the box, with the lid now on the ground. Daniels heart skipped a beat.

The world was silent for a moment. Quiet… cold… still. Then it started. The corpse looked up, its ghastly glowing eyes like the ends of cigarettes, and screeched.

"What the fu…" Chase was cut off as the corpse flung itself from its coffin at him. In a single twitch it tore his arm from his body and sent him flying out the door to the plane.

Rapidly the cabin depressurized and Daniel was screaming at the soldiers to strap in. The corpse had been flung from the plane when the door opened and was likely on the ground already. Daniel, fighting the plane every minute, began to pilot it to the ground. He made it half way before he lost control. In what felt like slow motion to Daniel, he was flung through the front windshield as the airship smashed into the ground and the box was sent flying after him. The box seemed to be far more than it seemed as multicolored strange rocks flooded out onto what had once been a battlefield.

As Daniel lay dying the soldiers, wounded but safe, began to run, leaving behind their heavier weaponry and supplies. Scared to death of the walking corpse they had just encountered, safety became their sole priority. Luckily enough a nearby bunker offered just that. As Daniel died, the real story began.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One:**

**Sanctum**

The sounds of steel toed boots on war torn earth was quiet but to the soldiers making the sounds, it was thunderous. There was no looking back, no second thought as they ran, fumbling across dead bodies of Axis and Ally alike. Something was coming, and they wanted to be far, far away.

Before them stretched a building, the windows they could see were open and gave the image of safe haven. That was at least how it looked to Staff Sergeant Dempsey; his mind blank other than this hope of asylum. The other soldiers however had a much simpler unifying idea, follow Dempsey.

"GET INSIDE!" The panicked Sergeant screamed as his men, diving through a nearby window beside what almost looked like the bars of a prison. The prison of safety he had just led his men into.

One by one the other soldiers climbed or dove into the building, some grabbing lumber off of a nearby truck, parked near the haven and abandoned with the battle. Miller was last inside, nearly landing on his face as he jumped through the window. He breathed heavily and looked out at the empty warfront, seeing nothing but fog… and a man running after them from the burning wreckage of the flight that had deposited the soldiers in this place.

"Sergeant, someone else is coming!" Miller called as he looked over to Dempsey, who had by this time caught his breath and was checking his ammunition. The Sergeant turned to face the window, now also seeing the vastly encroaching figure.

"That's… that's Chase! He must have survived somehow!" Dempsey exclaimed in surprise and optimism. This was quickly silenced by the bloodcurdling screech that came next, its source the supposed survivor of the crash and attack of a living corpse. "That's probably not a good sign is it?" Dempsey asked sarcastically as he looked at Chase, a man he had witnessed die not moments ago.

"He's acting like that thing that attacked him…" Fierro spoke quietly and for the first time since the crash, Fields had also remained silent though this was far less unusual. "It's creepy." He added.

"Ok, boys, I got a challenge for you." Dempsey started after a moment, watching the once soldier run towards the window. "Keep Chase alive and tell me what the hell is going on. First one to do that gets to bash the skull of the first Nazi Freak we meet." He turned to look at his remaining group.

Miller was of course the first to smirk and raise his hand. Prepared for the sarcastic or comically intended line Dempsey gave him a curt nod.

"We're in a run down hangar with a dead guy running toward us" Miller stated calmly. He smiled as he delivered the words.

"Can I shoot him?" Fields spoke suddenly, his words undermined by the surprise that anything was said to begin with. Dempsey looked thoughtful but eventually shook his head.

"Though if he says anything like it again we can throw him to Chase." It was with this statement that the Sergeant remembered the once dead soldier. Turning to the window they had entered from he was greeted by a strange sight. Chase, or rather what was once Chase, was attempting, and failing to climb in through the impractical entrance.

"Never was the athletic type was he" Fierro laughed with his words as he leaned against a nearby wall beside a spiral staircase. His slightly shaking hands reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. He lit one carefully.

"So now what?" Miller looked at the thing that was Chase and shivered. His eyes had sunken in and his ears bled. Though they were now lifeless his sunken eyes were glowing a dark muddled orange. His clothes had become ragged from the corpses attack and he looked a shadow of his once self.

"I don't know." Dempsey sighed and looked at the corpse and pulled his colt M1911 from his side holster. With a deep breath he lifted it, lined it up with the corpse's skull… and pulled the trigger.

Chase fell, a loud thump as he hit the ruined ground beneath his feet. Dempsey looked to his men and made a curt gesture to the rest of the building. Not wasting a second, the soldiers began to explore the building.

Five windows and a door. The long thin building had few entrances or exits, though if the door was an exit no one could tell, particularly given the ominous writing on it. It spelled help, or at least would have had the writer finished the p. Instead it read "Hell". What had happened here, who had been the writer and what had stopped him from completing his single word? That's when the men noticed something else about the door. What was written was written in blood.

Miller gave another shiver and even Fierro looked sick for a moment. Both moved away from the door, not caring to find what was behind it anymore. Fields simply sat and counted his ammo, creeping Dempsey out more than the door by far.

"War is hell men" Dempsey said flatly after walking over to the door and looking at Miller and Fierro. "Cant let a little blood get you down." A smirk crossed his face though it merely masked the growing disconcertion with the building.

"Sir yes sir" Miller. He was now standing at attention and trying to look tough, failing miserably, but trying. Quickly he moved away from the door and to the nearby staircase. At the top was a large couch someone had used as a barrier; it would take effort to move and none of the soldiers was up to the challenge.

All in all safe haven they had chosen was a bit small but would hopefully make for good housing while they hoped to be found. The four soldiers began to build a fire and sat, waiting. For a half an hour nothing happened, they noticed no new things about the building other than chalk outlines of guns along the wall, and then it began. Terrible wails began to fill the air, wafting in from outside. The air became putrid and marching sounded in the distance. The marching was to no tune and out of synch while the wails were mournful and detached.

As Dempsey looked out the window for the source he was confronted with a terrible sight. The bodies that had littered the battleground were raised like Chase and the corpse. Thousands stood and marched, aimless and mindless, but some, just a few… were looking back at Dempsey and making their way over. "Boys… how many rounds do you have left?" He called back to the other soldiers.

"Five clips average between us all, all pistol ammo." Fields stated as he looked over, immediately aware something was wrong. "Why?" He added.

Dempsey watched the first wave shambled towards him. "I think we're gonna need more than that."


End file.
